Crust
No One
A
Bread Shop Mystery #2
by
Winnie Archer
Genre:
Cozy Mystery
Business
is booming at Yeast of Eden. But with a deadly mystery taking over
the seaside town of Santa Sofia, the Mexican bread shop can’t
possibly leaven a killer’s appetite . . .
For
once, Ivy Culpepper feels fulfilled. An apprenticeship at Yeast of
Eden has opened her world to time-honored baking techniques under
owner Olaya Solis’s guidance—as well as the freshest small-town
gossip, courtesy of chatty regulars known as the Blackbird Ladies.
Ivy even begins accepting that she and restaurateur Miguel Baptista
may never again rekindle their romance—despite the undeniable
tension between them . . .
But
she’s tied to Miguel again when his trusted produce supplier goes
missing. Old Hank Riviera’s financial troubles would make anyone
consider running away forever. And with his relationship woes, there
are plenty of people who might want to see Hank disappear. As Ivy,
with the help of her octogenarian sidekick, turns to the loose-lipped
Blackbird Ladies for leads, she soon finds herself caught in a web of
lies stickier than a batch of Olaya’s popular pastries . . .
My
mother left an indelible mark on me, as all mothers do on their
children. I grew up loving walks
on
the beach, collecting seashells, and reading mystery novels (Agatha,
my sweet fawn pug, was named
after
the grande dame of mystery, after all). She also gave me my love of
photography by gifting me with
my
first camera and sending me out for the afternoon.
I
took pictures of everything I saw. That was that. My fate was sealed,
for better or for worse.
The
one thing she did not impart on me was her cooking ability. She had
had finesse in the kitchen,
and
she worked to the very end to get better and widen her skills, but
I’d always been too busy to
spend
much time baking and creating stews and casseroles and things in
Dutch ovens. That all
changed
after she died. The kitchen was the very place I found the most
solace. I hadn’t known it
would
be like that, but Olaya Solis, before I’d ever formally met her,
had me all figured out. She’d
become
a surrogate mother to me, but no one could replace the real thing. I
saw my mother everywhere
and
in everything. Most of all, at the ocean.
Now,
as I parked my mom’s car—my car—in the Baptista’s parking
lot, it was the beach that called to
me.
I slung my camera bag over my shoulder and started toward the
restaurant, but abruptly stopped
and
redirected my footsteps toward the pier and the wooden steps that led
down to the sand. The day was
cool,
a brisk breeze blowing in from the water. A few people strolled along
the shoreline, walking
their
dogs or playing with children in the surf. I did none of those
things. My feet seemed to direct themselves;
I
ended up at a cluster of rocks and perched on the edge of the flat
bolder that sat in front of the
formation.
I tilted my head back against the cool breeze and let my eyes flutter
closed. This spot on
the
beach had been one of my mom’s favorite places in Santa Sofia.
Maybe in the world. At this moment,
it
almost felt as if she were here with me.
A
mist of water kissed my cheeks and a shiver passed through me. The
breeze seemed to call my
name.
I smiled to myself. Maybe she actually was. I grabbed my camera from
my bag, walked along the
shoreline,
and took a few shots of the pier to capture the moment: the rocks off
in the distance, the
breaking
waves, the seaweed strewn on the waterpacked sand.
“Ivy!”
The
light wind carried my name across the surf.
“Ivy!”
I
turned toward the restaurant. It wasn’t the wind calling my name.
It was Miguel. He stood on the pier
and
waved.
I
took a deep breath before turning my back on the ocean, letting the
loss of my mother fade to a warm memory. I trudged up the beach
toward the pier.
Miguel
watched me, leaning in to give me a kiss on my cheek when I finally
reached him. A shiver of—something—went down my spine. Which is
not what I wanted to feel. I wasn’t in high school anymore,
after
all, but Miguel still seemed able to coax a schoolgirl quiver out of
me.
I
swallowed as I backed away, creating space between us. “Sorry it
took me so long. The Winter
Wonderland
Festival. It takes a lot of planning.”
He
brushed away the apology. “Oh, yeah, I know. We have a booth. Soup.
Tamales. Chips and salsa.”
He
winked. “And queso.”
I
couldn’t help my smile, but deep down there was an ache in the pit
of my stomach. I tried not to care, but I couldn’t help myself. I
wanted to ask him why he’d left all those years ago. I wanted to
know. Or did I? Did I really need to dredge up our history? Maybe he
simply hadn’t loved me enough and couldn’t see a life with me. If
that was the case, did I really need to know that? Better to leave
well enough alone.
“So,
you have some ideas for the brochure?” I said, getting down to
business.
“I
do,” he said. His green eyes, set against his olive skin, suddenly
seemed . . . I don’t know—detached.
I
couldn’t read his expression. It was as if the effort of being
jovial had taken its toll and now he was
done.
He gestured with his arm, sweeping it in a circle toward the ocean.
“I want a new menu. And I want a brochure to put at some of the
local hotels, motels, and bed-and-breakfasts. Is that something you
can do?”
“It
depends. What do you want them to look like?”
“I
want them to capture the setting. The ocean. The coast. Seafood. But
all of it infused with Baptista’s
Mexican
culture.”
I
gave a slow blink, my lips pressing together in contemplation. Or, if
I was being honest, bafflement.
Nothing
like some high expectations. I had no idea how to capture all of
that.
“It’s
a little vague,” he said.
I
nodded in agreement. “A little.”
“I
don’t have much direction, Ivy. I just know we need to freshen
things up. Not all that much has
changed
since my grandfather first opened the place, and that was in the
fifties.”
I
reached back into my memories. “Didn’t your parents remodel it
when we were in high school?”
“The
kitchen had an overhaul. They re-covered the old Naugahyde booths and
got new tables, but my folks never did much more than that. We can
afford to make some changes now. My dad . . . he had life insurance,
so . . .” He trailed off, swallowing.
His
father had died of a heart attack a few months before my mom had
passed away. It was one thing we still had in common.
“So
you want to remodel Baptista’s, but we’ll have to wait until the
remodel is done to take pictures.”
He
shook his head. “I’m going to do the renovations in sections. I
can’t afford to have the place closed completely. But it’s time.
I’m going to start with the dining room on the right, then work my
way to the left. I’ll do the patio last. Too cold for that right
now, anyway.”
The
wind had picked up, whipping strands of my curls across my face.
Miguel reached out, pulling a piece of my hair free from my
eyelashes. “That . . . um . . . sounds like a good plan,” I said,
just as someone called Miguel from the restaurant.
We
both turned to see Mrs. Baptista, Miguel’s mother, standing at the
end of the pier just outside the restaurant. She waved her arms over
her head.
“Miguel!
Ven aqui, mi’jo!”
“Todo
esta bien?” he called.
I
remembered enough Spanish to know she’d called for him to come to
her and he’d asked if everything was okay. Her response was
insistent.
“Ven,
ven! Ahorita!”
Miguel
and I locked eyes for a split second before we both hurried toward
the restaurant. Miguel, with his long stride, beat me there, but I
wasn’t far behind.
“Que,
Mama? Que es la problema?”
They
spoke in Spanish, and while I could pick out some of the words, I
didn’t follow the thread of their conversation. Miguel translated
for me a moment later. “Jason Rivera was here looking for his dad.
He’s worried about him. They were supposed to have dinner last
night, but Hank didn’t show. He missed a delivery and now Jason
can’t get ahold of him.”
The
name rang a bell. Rivera. Rivera? “Is his dad Hank? As in Mustache
Hank?”
Miguel
lowered his chin, but his eyebrows rose.
“You
know him?”
“No,
not at all. I mean, I just met him a few days ago.”
“Donde?”
Mrs. Baptista asked at the same time
Miguel
said, “Where?”
“He
came into the bread shop.” Where else?
“He
does love his bread,” Miguel said.
“Why
is his son looking for him here.” I asked.
Mrs.
Baptista frowned. “He say he no see him for days. I think he—he—”
English was not her first language
and
she paused to think about how to say what she wanted to say. “He
worry. No se. Pero Hank,
he no come here.”
She
started to turn, but stopped and took my hand and gave it a gentle
squeeze. “Good to see you, mi’ja.
Miguel, he say you are back to Santa Sofia. To stay?”
“Bought
a house and everything,” I said with a smile.
“Your
father, I know he is so happy you back with him.”
Her
English, while broken, was better than I remembered it being. “I
think so. I hope so. It’s been . . . rough.”
She
nodded, her own sorrow evident. “I know that. It does not get
better fast.”
“I
was so sorry to hear about your husband,” I said. Mrs. Baptista
knew exactly what my father had been through losing his wife, because
she’d been through her own loss.
“After
what happ—” She stopped, searching for the words. “After Laura
saw—”
“Mom.”
Miguel’s tense voice cut her off.
“Laura?”
I asked.
But
Mrs. Baptista clamped her mouth shut, looked at Miguel, at me, and
then shook her head.
“Muy
triste,” she said. I recognized the word: Sad.
Was
she talking about our breakup so many years ago, or my mom? Either
way, I nodded.
Mrs.
Baptista gave my hand another squeeze before letting it go and
turning to go back to the restaurant.
There
was a moment of awkward silence between Miguel and me as she walked
away. “Is Laura still in Santa Sofia?” I asked.
He
looked at me, puzzled. “We took over the restaurant together,” he
said. “I thought you knew that.”
“No,
I don’t think you mentioned it.” Neither had Emmaline, but then
why would either of them? Laura was three years younger than me. When
she was in middle school, I’d been her brother’s girlfriend,
nothing more. I remembered her prank calling my house and hanging up,
sticking childish warnings she’d written about me dating her
brother into my backpack, hiding anything of mine when I’d been
over at the Baptista house. I’d dismissed it as the antics of a
jealous sister. We’d never been friends, but we were adults now and
that was all in
the
past. “Is she here? I’d like to say hello.”
He
started walking up the pier toward the restaurant.
I
fell into step next to him. “She’s out today,” he said.
“Oh,
well, another time.”
He
spoke, but kept his gaze straight ahead, his pace quickening. “I
need to call Jason.”
“You’re
worried about Hank,” I said, feeling silly for stating the obvious.
“Maybe he’s just sick, or something.”
But
Miguel shook his head. “I don’t think so. Jason told my mom that
he’s missed his stops for the last few days.”
“Since
Monday,” I said.
“How
did you know—”
“High
school Spanish,” I said with a little smile.
“She
said lunes.”
Before he could comment on my rudimentary Spanish, I forged on.
“Where else was he supposed to deliver to?”
Miguel
stopped and turned to gaze toward the ocean. Something in his
attitude had changed. He was tense. Almost coarse in his tone. He
rattled off a few local eateries, and then paused. “Something
doesn’t feel right,” he said after a minute, but he was just
talking aloud more than he was speaking directly to me.
“What
do you mean?”
He
looked back to me. “In all the years I’ve known him, Hank has
never missed a delivery.”
“Never?”
That was some crazy work ethic.
“Never.”
“Is
there a Mrs. Mustache Hank?” I asked, not meaning the question to
sound as silly as it did.
“There’s
an ex–Mrs. Mustache Hank.”
“Ah,
divorced.” That explained the fawning Blackbird Ladies. Hank was an
eligible bachelor, although in a May-December romance, the Blackbird
Ladies were December to Hank’s May.
“He
always said they both went into their marriage with the intent of
going the distance.”
“I
had the same intent. Divorce wasn’t an option.”
I
shrugged with resignation. “It happened anyway.”
He
looked me in the eyes, his gaze intense. “I’m sure that was
tough,” he said, but I didn’t sense any
sympathy.
In fact, it sounded slightly smug. Or had I imagined that?
I
cleared my throat and got back on track. “So Mustache Hank was
divorced.”
“Yeah,
it’s pretty new,” he said. “He actually stayed in the office at
the restaurant for a few days when it happened.”
“Then
what?”
“Then
he found a place to live.”
I
turned toward the parking lot, ready to head up the pier. “So let’s
go check it out.”
Miguel
shook his head. “We can’t.”
I
was curious, and I knew myself. If I didn’t find out where Mustache
Hank was, I’d mull it over and over in my head and end up calling
Miguel to get updates. It was better to just figure it out right now.
“Of
course we can. And we should.”
“But
we can’t.”
“Why
can’t we?” I asked, but then realization dawned. “Ohhh. You
don’t know where his new place is.”
He
grimaced. “I wish I did.”
“He
must be sick. That’s the only explanation, right?”
Miguel
seemed to consider, and then nodded. “Maybe.” He took his cell
phone from his back pocket, used his thumb to scroll, and held out
the phone between us. He’d put it on speaker. A few seconds later,
a man answered. “Jason? Hey. It’s Miguel. Baptista. I heard you
came by.”
“Yeah,”
a voice said. “I’m looking for my dad.” He repeated what he’d
already told Miguel’s mother,
but
there was something else. Something he wasn’t saying.
Miguel
picked up on it, too. “Is there more?” Miguel asked.
On
the other end of the line, Jason sighed. “He owes my mom money.”
Miguel’s
eyes looked toward the sky. I could tell he didn’t want to get
involved in an alimony dispute between his produce supplier and the
guy’s ex-wife.
“I
haven’t seen him, Jason.”
I
didn’t blame Miguel for not wanting to stick his nose into someone
else’s business, but I wasn’t sure I felt the same. Something
about Mustache Hank had elicited my sympathies. He’d seemed
melancholy. He’d put on a smile for the Blackbird Ladies, but there
was something . . . a kind of sadness that permeated his being.
I
looked at Miguel. He took my meaning, nodded, and said, “Jason, I
have a friend here with me. She saw your dad.”
“Hi,
Jason,” I said. “My name’s Iv—”
Jason’s
voice shot out like a bullet through the speaker, cutting me off.
“You’ve seen him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
he demanded. “Where’d you see him?”
I
caught Miguel’s gaze, raising my eyebrows. Jason was worked up. “I
work at the bread shop in town.
Yeast
of Eden.”
“He
was there? At the bakery? When? What day?”
“It
was Monday. He didn’t stay long.”
“So
he’s okay?” Jason asked, his voice calmer.
“I’d
never met him before,” I said, “but I think he seemed fine. Maybe
a little sad, but like I said, I
don’t
know him.”
“And
you’re sure it was him?” Jason asked.
“According
to the Blackbi—” I broke off, rephrasing my answer. “According
to some of the women who were in the shop. They called him Mustache
Hank.”
“And
you said that was Monday?”
Instead
of answering, Miguel said, “Jason, what’s going on?”
Jason
hesitated. “Look,” he said after a few seconds. “I’m going to
be straight with you. My dad hasn’t been right since the divorce.
And . . . I’m worried about him.”
Miguel
scrubbed his fingers through his hair.
“What
do you mean, Jason? What’s going on?”
“He’s
just . . . he’s not the same.”
“Do
you think he’s depressed?” I asked. I’d gone through an array
of emotions after my divorce, including
depression.
The marriage had been a bad decision on my part. I’d been lied to
and cheated on, but despite all of that, I’d still felt as if I’d
failed. Jason sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe?” He thought for a
second. “Yeah. Yeah, I think he might be. He still loves my mom.
The whole thing tore him up.”
“Where’s
he staying?” Miguel asked.
He
exhaled. “I don’t know.”
“He
didn’t tell you?” Miguel asked.
Jason
scoffed. “He didn’t tell me anything. He thought I sided with my
mom with the divorce. Who knows, maybe I did. I don’t know.” His
voice wavered. “But I wanted to see him. That’s why we were going
to have dinner last night. When he didn’t show, I thought maybe he
was still pissed at me, but then I heard that he missed a bunch of
deliveries. Miguel, I’m worried about him and I don’t know how to
find him.”
Neither
of us had any answers for him. Miguel told him he’d keep an eye
out, Jason thanked him, and then the line went dead.
The
indefatigable Winnie Archer is a middle school teacher by
day and a writer by night. Born in a beach town in California, she
now lives in an inspiring century-old house in North Texas and loves
being surrounded by real-life history. She fantasizes about spending
summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship
with both yoga and chocolate, adores pumpkin spice lattes, is devoted
to her five kids and husband, and can’t believe she’s lucky
enough to be living the life of her dreams.
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